FTTP versus FTTC in 2026

In 2026 the word fibre is almost useless. It describes the majority of products, including ones that still end in a copper pair that hates rain. FTTP versus FTTC is the distinction that still pays: light to the building, or light to a green box and then a history. Retailers will not always say it on the envelope. The wall and the upload will.

How to tell, at home

ONT on the wall with a fibre tail: FTTP. A faceplate that looks like a phone socket feeding a hub: copper last metres, so FTTC or similar. A Virgin tap: cable.

Upload 15–20 on a 80-ish down: cabinet. Upload that resembles the down, or a few hundred: fibre or cable-DOCSIS that is trying. Trust the ugly numbers over the adjective.

If both exist at the address

Take FTTP unless the install date is hostile and the cabinet is genuinely fine for the house. Fine means measured at 9:30, not a 2019 memory.

Stop-sell will eventually remove the copper option. Do not buy a souvenir.

If only the cabinet exists

Then FTTC is not a moral failure. It is the plant. Price retailers on it, or price FWA/satellite as a bridge, or wait on a dated FTTP.

What you should not do is pay a FTTP poster-price for a cabinet product because the word fibre was large.

If the light stops in a green box, you do not have the 2026 product. You have the 2014 one with better branding.

FTTP versus FTTC is the last technology distinction most households need. Everything else is a shop. Get the technology right, then haggle the shop.